Welcome to Alan Turing's Birthday Challenge

The fourth challenge of the 2020 Series will be a 3-day challenge celebrating the 108th birthday of Alan Turing. The challenge will be offered on the PPS-Sieve application, beginning 23 June 22:00 UTC and ending 26 June 22:00 UTC.

On June 23, 1912, one of the founders of computer science, Alan Turing was born. He is well known for his work during the Second World War on code breaking that was pivotal in the Allied powers’ victory, and also for his test to determine whether human intelligence is distinguishable from that of machine intelligence. We all know of his arrest and prosecution for being gay, and for the chemical castration that followed, and we know of his tragic death by cyanide poisoning. But not many people outside of computer science are aware of the groundbreaking paper he published in 1936.

Turing broke computations down to their atomic components. He then showed that each of these basic steps could be performed by a theoretical machine -- a machine that we now call a Turing machine -- a universal machine which could carry out any algorithm. It was here that he invented the stored-program concept -- that programs could be stored in memory -- an idea that would be important in the design of the modern computer.

These ideas now seem familiar. Modern computers are universal Turing machines. They run programs that are stored in memory. We all now know the power of computers, but not many of us truly understand their limitations. Turing did. It’s all there in his great paper of 1936. (Credit: MIT Press)

To participate in the Challenge, please select only the PPS (Sieve) project in your PrimeGrid preferences section.

Application builds are available for the following:

• Microsoft Windows (98 or later) running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.42 (openclatiPPSsieve)
  
• Microsoft Windows (98 or later) running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.42 (cudaPPSsieve)
  
• Microsoft Windows (98 or later) running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.42 (cpuPPSsieve)
  
• Microsoft Windows running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 1.42 (cpuPPSsieve)
  
• Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.42 (openclatiPPSsieve)
  
• Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.42 (cudaPPSsieve)
  
• Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.42 (cpuPPSsieve)
  
• Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 1.42 (openclatiPPSsieve)
  
• Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 1.42 (cudaPPSsieve)
  
• Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 1.42 (cpuPPSsieve)
  
• Mac OS 10.5+ running on an Intel 64-bit CPU 1.42 (cpuPPSsieve)
  
• Mac OS 10.5+ running on an Intel 64-bit CPU 1.42 (cudaPPSsieve)
  
• Mac OS 10.5+ running on an Intel 64-bit CPU 1.42 (openclatiPPSsieve)
  

Time zone converter:

The World Clock - Time Zone Converter

NOTE: The countdown clock on the front page uses the host computer time. Therefore, if your computer time is off, so will the countdown clock. For precise timing, use the UTC Time in the data section to the left of the countdown clock.

Scoring Information

Scores will be kept for individuals and teams. Only work units issued AFTER 23 June 2020 22:00 UTC and received BEFORE 26 June 2020 22:00 UTC will be considered for credit. Since this is a fixed credit project, we'll be using cobblestones for scoring.

Credit is currently set at 3371 cobblestones per WU.

At the Conclusion of the Challenge
We would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

ABORTING WU's allows them to be recycled immediately; thus a much faster "clean up" to the end of a challenge. DETACHING, RESETTING, and PAUSING WU's causes them to remain in limbo until they EXPIRE. Therefore, we must wait until WU's expire to send them out to be completed.

Please consider either completing what's in the queue or ABORTING them. Thank you. :)

About the Proth Prime Search

The Proth Prime Search is done in collaboration with the Proth Search project. This search looks for primes in the form of k*2^n+1. With the condition 2^n > k, these are often called Proth primes. This project also has the added bonus of possibly finding factors of "classical" Fermat numbers or Generalized Fermat numbers. As this requires PrimeFormGW (PFGW) (a primality-testing program), once PrimeGrid finds a prime, it is then tested on PrimeGrid's servers for divisibility.

Our initial goal was to double check all previous work up to n=500K for odd k<1200 and to fill in any gaps that were missed. We accomplished that, increased the goal to n=800k, then expanded to include sub-project Proth Prime Search Extended (PPSE) for odd 1,200<k<10,000 and the Proth Mega Prime Search of numbers larger than 1m decimal digits for odd k<1200. Small primes are still important as they may lead to new factors for "classical" Fermat numbers or Generalized Fermat numbers. While there are many GFN factors, currently there are only about 352 "classical" Fermat number factors known. Current primes found in PPS definitely make it into the Top 5000 Primes database.

We're currently searching n>2.87m for odd 300<k<1,200 in PPS, n>1.58m for odd 1,200<k<10,000 in PPSE and n>3.33m for odd 1,200<k<10,000 in the Proth Mega Prime Search.

For more information about "Proth" primes, please visit these links:

• Proth Prime - The Prime Glossary
  
• Proth Prime - Wolfram MathWorld
  
• Proth Number - Wikipedia
  

About Proth Search

The Proth Search project was established in 1998 by Ray Ballinger and Wilfrid Keller to coordinate a distributed effort to find Proth primes (primes of the form k*2^n+1) for k < 300. Ray was interested in finding primes while Wilfrid was interested in finding divisors of Fermat numbers. Since that time it has expanded to include k < 10,000. Mark Rodenkirch (aka rogue) has been helping Ray keep the website up to date for the past few years.

Early in 2008, PrimeGrid and Proth Search teamed up to provide a software managed distributed effort to the search. Although it might appear that PrimeGrid is duplicating some of the Proth Search effort by re-doing some ranges, few ranges on Proth Search were ever double-checked. This has resulted in PrimeGrid finding primes that were missed by previous searchers. By the end of 2008, all new primes found by PrimeGrid were eligible for inclusion in Chris Caldwell's Prime Pages Top 5000. Sometime in 2009, over 90% of the tests handed out by PrimeGrid were numbers that have never been tested.
Since then a great deal of proth primes have been found, including over 194 mega primes!

PrimeGrid intends to continue the search indefinitely for Proth primes.

What is sieving?

Sieving is the first step to prime finding. In general, a sieve separates wanted/desired elements from unwanted material using a tool such as a mesh, net or other filtration or distillation methods. The word "sift" derives from this term. (Wikipedia - Sieve)

In PrimeGrid's case, the desired elements ultimately are prime numbers and the unwanted material are composite numbers. Our tool of choice for PPS sieve is Geoff Reynolds'/Ken Brazier's tpsieve program. It eliminates possible candidates by removing numbers that have small factors. As this process is much faster than primality testing, it is good to thoroughly sieve a data set before primality testing.

Sieving removes many candidates at the beginning. However, the deeper the sieve goes, the slower the rate of removal, till eventually sieving removes candidates at the same rate as primality testing. This is sometimes referred to as "optimal depth". Primality testing is recommended at this point.

There are many factors that determine how much time and how deep to sieve. After sieving, all the remaining candidates must be primality tested to determine their "prime" status.

Best of luck to all participants!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Hi all,
I'm looking forward to this challenge but does anyone have a app_config file that I can create for running more than 1 GPU task at a time? For a Radeon card.

I had this but I've missed something because it's not working.

<app>
<name>pps_sr2sieve</name>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>0.2</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>

I think I've missed closing it out properly??

Thanks for any help :)

Edit - With some detective work I think it's this?

<app_config>
<app>
<name>pps_sr2sieve</name>
<report_results_immediately/>
<fraction_done_exact/>
</app>
<app_version>
<app_name>pps_sr2sieve</app_name>
<plan_class>openclatiPPSsieve</plan_class>
<avg_ncpus>0.0001</avg_ncpus>
<ngpus>0.5</ngpus>
</app_version>

</app_config>

How long will PPS-Sieve work? To what boundary are the calculations carried out?

Is CPU multi-threading recommended for the PPS Sieve project?

multi-threading is only for LLR

First, on modern GPUs PPS SV tasks take around 10-30 minutes.

The 2080Ti on my 4.7GHz (turbo) 9900K takes just under 90 sec to complete a PPS sieve task

Well they don't come much quicker than those 2 combinations! :D
Not yet anyway.

These 3080's must be mind blowing...... a bit like the price tag will be!!

First, on modern GPUs PPS SV tasks take around 10-30 minutes.

The 2080Ti on my 4.7GHz (turbo) 9900K takes just under 90 sec to complete a PPS sieve task

Well they don't come much quicker than those 2 combinations! :D
Not yet anyway.

These 3080's must be mind blowing...... a bit like the price tag will be!!

Ooooh wow
They say 2080Ti~3080's perf, so it must be an interesting race!
Wow I underestimated these GPUs, my iGPU (Vega 8) completes these in about an hour, but my estimate (~15min) was off by 10 times!

First, on modern GPUs PPS SV tasks take around 10-30 minutes.

The 2080Ti on my 4.7GHz (turbo) 9900K takes just under 90 sec to complete a PPS sieve task

Well they don't come much quicker than those 2 combinations! :D
Not yet anyway.

These 3080's must be mind blowing...... a bit like the price tag will be!!

Ooooh wow
They say 2080Ti~3080's perf, so it must be an interesting race!
Wow I underestimated these GPUs, my iGPU (Vega 8) completes these in about an hour, but my estimate (~15min) was off by 10 times!

even a 2060 only takes 3 mins.

First, on modern GPUs PPS SV tasks take around 10-30 minutes.

The 2080Ti on my 4.7GHz (turbo) 9900K takes just under 90 sec to complete a PPS sieve task

Well they don't come much quicker than those 2 combinations! :D
Not yet anyway.

These 3080's must be mind blowing...... a bit like the price tag will be!!

Ooooh wow
They say 2080Ti~3080's perf, so it must be an interesting race!
Wow I underestimated these GPUs, my iGPU (Vega 8) completes these in about an hour, but my estimate (~15min) was off by 10 times!

even a 2060 only takes 3 mins.

Oof, that's why I'm not participating--Vega 8 performs terribly.
Also that's why I'm building a new machine this summer with scholarship :)
Is it correct to say: RX5500XT<RTX2060<GTX1660S<RX5600XT<RTX2070S? or are the two xx60 cards opposite?

I can't seem to get multiple tasks per GPU working. I have this in my app_config.xml file. Everything else in that file is working fine.

<app>
<name>pps_sr2sieve</name>
</app>
<app_version>
<app_name>pps_sr2sieve</app_name>
<plan_class>cudaPPSsieve</plan_class>
<avg_ncpus>0.1</avg_ncpus>
<ngpus>0.5</ngpus>
</app_version>

Oof, that's why I'm not participating--Vega 8 performs terribly.
Also that's why I'm building a new machine this summer with scholarship :)
Is it correct to say: RX5500XT<RTX2060<GTX1660S<RX5600XT<RTX2070S? or are the two xx60 cards opposite?

2060 = ~190s
2080 = ~ 130s

A 2070S should be close to the 2080. No idea about the others.
These are fastest times without overclocking. Everything slows down when you have any (yes, even 1) cpu tasks running.
If the rumours are to be believed, the new cards should move up at least a rung if not more: ie 3060=2070, 3070=2080, 3080=2080ti.

Oof, that's why I'm not participating--Vega 8 performs terribly.
Also that's why I'm building a new machine this summer with scholarship :)
Is it correct to say: RX5500XT<RTX2060<GTX1660S<RX5600XT<RTX2070S? or are the two xx60 cards opposite?

2060 = ~190s
2080 = ~ 130s

A 2070S should be close to the 2080. No idea about the others.
These are fastest times without overclocking. Everything slows down when you have any (yes, even 1) cpu tasks running.
If the rumours are to be believed, the new cards should move up at least a rung if not more: ie 3060=2070, 3070=2080, 3080=2080ti.

I meant general perf, not just pps sv. I can find that info here
http://www.primegrid.com/gpu_list.php

Is it correct to say: RX5500XT<RTX2060<GTX1660S<RX5600XT<RTX2070S? or are the two xx60 cards opposite?

Is it correct to say: RX5500XT<RTX2060<GTX1660S<RX5600XT<RTX2070S? or are the two xx60 cards opposite?

No. The two AMD cards will be slower on PPS sieve because for AMD it is a slower OCL app, whereas it is a native CUDA app on the NVidia cards (PPS sieve is the only PG application where this is the case. For GFN and AP27, all apps are OCL).

Also, the 1660S isn't really any faster than a regular 1660. Both have the same 1480 shaders, the super version just has faster memory that will, in general, not help with PG (except for maybe a minor boost on AP27). The regular (not super) 2060 has has 1920 shaders and will be noticeably faster than any 1660 card of any variety including the 1660 Ti. For example, my ASUS RTX 2060 is running PPS sieves in under 220 seconds. My wife's EVGA 1660 Ti is doing them in around 365 seconds.

Thanks for the info!
So 2060~~5600xt for AP and GFN?

Oops, I got distracted and started late.

I forget, the stats are updated either every half hour or hourly. Guess we'll see in a few minutes which one it was.

Hmm so I assume 1650S>5500XT? In subprojects other than PPS SV, of course, like AP.

If that's the case I'm going for 1650S :)

Also I received a newsletter from AMD saying 5600XT has now got 14Gbps of memory speed, is that basically the same with 5700 now?
____________
My lucky number is 6219*2^3374198+1

I'm missing Michael's daily challenge reports.

Me too.

statsgr.id now has a graph of the top 10 users within a team, on that team's page.
Example: https://statsgr.id/team.php?challenge_id=2020_4&team_id=46
____________

275*2^3585539+1 is prime!!! (1079358 digits)
Proud member of Aggie the Pew

statsgr.id now has a graph of the top 10 users within a team, on that team's page.
Example: https://statsgr.id/team.php?challenge_id=2020_4&team_id=46

I'm missing Michael's daily challenge reports.

Me too.

Whatever happened to "I quit!"?

:)

Less than an hour to go! Some friendly reminders... :)

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

When the challenge completes, we would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's (and then UPDATE the PrimeGrid project) instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

ABORTING WU's allows them to be recycled immediately; thus a much faster "clean up" to the end of a Challenge. DETACHING, RESETTING, and PAUSING WU's causes them to remain in limbo until they EXPIRE. Therefore, we must wait until WU's expire to send them out to be completed.

Likewise, if you're shutting down the computer for an extended period of time, or deleting the VM (Virtual Machine), please ABORT all remaining tasks first. Also, be aware that merely shutting off a cloud server doesn't stop the billing. You have to destroy/delete the server if you don't want to continue to be charged for it.

Thank you!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

And we're done! Cleanup begins soon, est. completion in 3-4 weeks.

Challenge: Alan Turing's Birthday
App: 9 (PPS-Sieve)
(As of 2020-06-26 22:59:36 UTC)

1063429 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 36797 (3%) / 1026585 (97%) / 47 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

29415 (3%) were aborted. [10486 (1%) / 18929 (2%) / 0 (0%)]
13222 (1%) came back with some kind of an error. [1967 (0%) / 11255 (1%) / 0 (0%)]
957063 (90%) have returned a successful result. [10988 (1%) / 946075 (89%) / 0 (0%)]
54099 (5%) are still in progress. [12519 (1%) / 41484 (4%) / 47 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

47616 (5%) are pending validation. [313 (0%) / 47221 (5%) / 0 (0%)]
909443 (95%) have been successfully validated. [10675 (1%) / 898850 (94%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
4 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 4 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Cleanup Status:

Jun 27: 40198 tasks outstanding; 26638 affecting individual (275) scoring positions; 7820 affecting team (45) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Is it possible to know how many factors are found during challenge?
____________
92*10^^1585996-1 NEAR-REPDIGIT PRIME :) :) :)
4 * 650^⁴⁹⁸¹⁰¹-1 CRUS PRIME
2022202116^¹³¹⁰⁷²+1 GENERALIZED FERMAT
Proud member of team Aggie The Pew. Go Aggie!

Is it possible to know how many factors are found during challenge?

Is it possible to know how many factors are found during challenge?

Possible, yes. Practical, no.

That information is not stored in any database. Someone would need to write a program to read every result file (nearly a million of them) that was returned during the challenge. But that's not enough, since many candidates may have previously been eliminated by other factors. All those factors would need to be compared to what's already in the database to eliminate those where the candidate was eliminated previously.

BUT WAIT!!!

The database already has all of the challenge's factor records, so ALL of them will register as "already found".

So you would have to, on another system, load up a database backup from before the challenge started, and compare all the factors against that database. It still wouldn't be exact because this database would be missing factors found between the time of the backup and the time the challenge started, but this would be the best that's possible.

All of this would need to happen before the challenge cleanup is done and the challenge tasks are purged.

It's a lot of work even if you don't care about the old factors, and a whole lot more if you do. Good luck convincing someone that this is worth doing.

If you do not need the exact number of factors found, maybe you could give a rough estimate based on the number of tasks in the challenge multiplied by an expected average number of factors per task in the area where we are sieving currently? /JeppeSN

Cleanup Status:

Jun 28: 20321 tasks outstanding; 9933 affecting individual (237) scoring positions; 2393 affecting team (30) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Cleanup Status:

Jun 28: 20321 tasks outstanding; 9933 affecting individual (237) scoring positions; 2393 affecting team (30) scoring positions.

Cleanup Status:

Jun 28: 20321 tasks outstanding; 9933 affecting individual (237) scoring positions; 2393 affecting team (30) scoring positions.

What append to June 27? :)

Cleanup Status:

Jun 29: 19150 tasks outstanding; 9303 affecting individual (234) scoring positions; 2263 affecting team (29) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Cleanup Status:

Jun 28: 20321 tasks outstanding; 9933 affecting individual (237) scoring positions; 2393 affecting team (30) scoring positions.

What append to June 27? :)

It's down there somewhere, I like to keep the updates at the top :)

Cleanup Status:

Jun 30: 17095 tasks outstanding; 8032 affecting individual (225) scoring positions; 2011 affecting team (29) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Actually, I like to know why something isn't possible.

Wouldn't it have been possible to check the status page prior to and after the challenge?

https://www.primegrid.com/stats_pps_sieve.php

Actually, I like to know why something isn't possible.

Wouldn't it have been possible to check the status page prior to and after the challenge?

https://www.primegrid.com/stats_pps_sieve.php

Cleanup Status:

Jul 1: 14609 tasks outstanding; 6290 affecting individual (210) scoring positions; 1627 affecting team (26) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Cleanup Status:

Jun 28: 20321 tasks outstanding; 9933 affecting individual (237) scoring positions; 2393 affecting team (30) scoring positions.

What append to June 27? :)

It's down there somewhere, I like to keep the updates at the top :)

https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=9178&nowrap=true#141189
I think Aillas means that Mike/Roger used to put all the dates in one post and keep posting them long posts.

Cleanup Status:

Jul 2: 6543 tasks outstanding; 1682 affecting individual (134) scoring positions; 382 affecting team (14) scoring positions.
Jul 3: 2570 tasks outstanding; 416 affecting individual (75) scoring positions; 73 affecting team (6) scoring positions.
Jul 4: 1139 tasks outstanding; 91 affecting individual (35) scoring positions; 22 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 5: 714 tasks outstanding; 37 affecting individual (22) scoring positions; 10 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 6: 554 tasks outstanding; 25 affecting individual (16) scoring positions; 7 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 7: 431 tasks outstanding; 18 affecting individual (13) scoring positions; 6 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 8: 182 tasks outstanding; 6 affecting individual (5) scoring positions; 3 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Cleanup Status:

Jul 2: 6543 tasks outstanding; 1682 affecting individual (134) scoring positions; 382 affecting team (14) scoring positions.
Jul 3: 2570 tasks outstanding; 416 affecting individual (75) scoring positions; 73 affecting team (6) scoring positions.
Jul 4: 1139 tasks outstanding; 91 affecting individual (35) scoring positions; 22 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 5: 714 tasks outstanding; 37 affecting individual (22) scoring positions; 10 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 6: 554 tasks outstanding; 25 affecting individual (16) scoring positions; 7 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 7: 431 tasks outstanding; 18 affecting individual (13) scoring positions; 6 affecting team (1) scoring positions.
Jul 8: 182 tasks outstanding; 6 affecting individual (5) scoring positions; 3 affecting team (1) scoring positions.

I do like this way to report cleanup progress !

Yup, just make sure our posts dont flood it! That's the original reason this way was abandoned. *pls delete our posts*

The results are final!

Top 3 Individuals:
1. davidBAM
2. tng
3. ChelseaOilman

Top 3 Teams:
1. Czech National Team
2. Antarctic Crunchers
3. UK BOINC Team

Congrats to the winners, and well done to all participants! We'll see you very soon for the Katherine Johnson Memorial Challenge.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.